


Infinite Value

by Loestri



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Amputation, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Tony Stark-centric, Torture, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, Winter Soldier Tony Stark, gonna have to wait for the comfort though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-21 14:54:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18704596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loestri/pseuds/Loestri
Summary: Tony was dying, but it was okay. He'd protected the people he loved and sometimes that meant leaving them. At least they'd be safe. They'd mourn and things would be difficult, but they we're gonna be okay. Pepper had said so.Then he woke up. The battlefield long gone, replaced by snowy cliffs and confusion. And he wasn't alone. There was James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes, laid out in the snow across from him. Freshly fallen from that damned train, as far as the rest of the world was concerned, dead. That was something they had in common.A really long coming home story.





	Infinite Value

**Author's Note:**

> Endgame left me with a lot of feelings to work through, and what better way than to write an alternate ending where my favourite character doesn't actually die. Thanks for that Marvel, btw.
> 
> I intend on this being a fully fledged story, but we'll see how that ends up working out. I'll try and update as regularly as I can but my track record isn't so great for that. 
> 
> Anyway, enjoy the story!

 

He was dying. Rhodey found him first, his heavy suit dropping in front of Tony. He barely registered it. Everything was slipping away so quickly. 

 

Peter swung in next, he was so young. Hadn't changed at all in the past five years. He’d entered the battle talking incessantly as he had before, it couldn’t have made Tony happier. Peter was saying his name, telling him they'd won. He'd succeeded, that had to be worth it. 

 

Then Pepper was there, beautiful, wonderful Pepper. She greeted him softly, sadness plaguing her voice. Mustering whatever last dregs of energy he could he replied, “Hey, Pep.” She was crying, Pepper wasn’t supposed to cry. He’d caused her so much pain over the last fifteen years since becoming Iron Man. Even before then. Then she forced a smile.

 

“We’re gonna be okay.”

 

He was lucky- so many people weren't. He'd got Pepper, and then he'd got Morgan. His little girl, he didn't want to leave her. Maybe they could be proud of him though- he'd saved the world. He could leave it a better place for her than it had been before. Even if that meant leaving them. 

 

He was slipping again, fading, everything fell away. He didn't need to be sad though, he'd saved them. Saved the people he loved when the casualties could have been so much worse. The quiet darkness encroached on his vision. Stole it away bit by bit, till the last he saw was Pepper's face. Sad and resigned.

 

*

 

Then he woke up, blinding white light so bright it burned. Could this be heaven? He'd never really believed, but after everything else he'd seen? Aliens, gods, magic, time travel. Well, this place fit the bill. It looked like it could be heaven, but it was so cold. Not that he'd any reason to believe heaven couldn't be cold- but he'd always thought it was supposed to be comforting and peaceful. The bone deep cold and all encompassing pain wasn't very peaceful.

 

He looked around slowly, his head barely able to move the few centimetres it took to take in his surroundings. There were cliffs, snow, and it started to feel less like heaven. The thought of hell passed over his mind briefly and he quickly dismissed it. After everything he’d done- well, it wasn’t a possibility he’d like to consider. 

 

His eyes skipped over a dark mound in the snow, then immediately jerked back to it.  

 

Metres away another poor soul laid out in the snow. He tried to concentrate through the pain induced fog clouding his brain. Their head was turned towards him and he studied their face.

 

His eyes had to be playing tricks on him. The snow and the pain distorting his vision because his first assessment said that it was  _ Barnes.  _ The Winter Soldier, Captain America's best bud. Albeit his hair was short and his face more youthful but it still looked so much like him. That couldn't be right, he was sure nobody else had died on the battlefield. He was supposed to have saved  _ everyone _ . Barnes couldn't be here. Barnes was supposed to be alive. Then Tony noticed the laboured rise and fall of Barnes chest. Much like his own. Do dead people breathe? 

 

He had to be dead though, because there was no other explanation for why he might be here. Could they die again? Was that possible? He wasn't sure, but if it were possible, they would certainly die out here. As it was, Barnes seemed close. Tony sighed wearily. He hurt so much, he wanted to close his eyes and drift to sleep- but he had to see if Barnes was okay. 

 

He tried to push himself up and spasmed as agony attacked each of his nerves. Fire radiated from his right side, rendering him immobile. F.R.I.D.A.Y was offline, she couldn’t help him. He was stuck, in pain and watching Barnes breathe raggedly. 

 

He didn't dare take his eyes off the other man, he was the only other living thing. Tony couldn't do anything to help him but he could watch. The repetitive rise and fall of his chest was comforting. It could have been minutes or hours later when Tony started to slip again, and he wondered if this time it would be permanent.

 

*

 

His first thought was that he wasn't freezing. Far from warm, but not freezing. The second was that he was alive,  _ again.  _ Against all odds his eyes had opened a second time. The infinity stones should have killed him, and if he truly had been alive in the snow that should have killed him too. The fact that it hadn't felt like more proof that he was dead, killed by the first and experiencing some weird afterlife. 

 

There were people talking in the background. He couldn't understand them, the words bled into one another. At first he thought it was him. Maybe the dead couldn't understand language, or maybe it was just the all-consuming pain that refused to leave him clouding his brain. Then he heard them better and realised he recognised the language- he just couldn't understand it. 

 

Two voices exchanged angry words in Russian from behind Tony and he slowly opened his eyes. The bright snow was gone, replaced with worn wood and a chill that touched his skin. Before he'd been encased in the suit. It didn't keep the cold at bay- far from it in fact- so broken from the fight. But he’d had the suit. The men who spoke russian had taken him from his suit. His heart rate spiked at the realisation. He  _ needed _ the suit, he wasn’t  _ safe, the suit wasn’t safe.  _ These people couldn’t have it, he didn’t know who they were. He didn’t know what they’d do. 

 

He moved his arms and  _ holy fuck  _ that hurt. His feeble attempt to sit up drew a pained shout from his throat. The russian stopped. Two men moved into his line of sight. Dark eyes glaring. They wore old soviet soldiers uniforms which-  _ weird.  _ He didn’t have time to take in any further information though as a boot came down towards his face and he was knocked out. 

 

*

 

His next instance of waking was marked by the rattling of some sort of old vehicle. And pain. Still the pain. He opened his eyes hesitantly. He had an awful headache, just to make things worse than they already were. Dead people weren’t supposed to be able to feel this much pain, they shouldn’t be able to feel anything at all. Still, he _ had  _ to be dead. 

 

As he thought, he was in the back of an old van, and there was Sergeant Barnes. Alive, awake, clutching his left arm close to him.  _ Wait.  _ That arm, that very clearly flesh arm, shouldn’t be there. It was mangled and broken but it was flesh and it wasn’t supposed to be. The arm, the youth, the  _ hair.  _ It felt like he was onto something, but it was so ridiculous, so improbable. 

 

They were alone in the back of the van, so Tony whispered to Barnes. “Barnes, please tell me you know what the hell is going on.” 

 

Confusion and suspicion passed over the Sergeant’s face. “Not that I ain’t glad to hear a fellow American, but I ain’t got a clue who you are, so how d’you know my name?” Barnes leaned forward slightly and gritted his teeth as his arm was jostled. Tony didn’t know how to respond. How could the man not know who Tony was? That wasn’t possible, not at all. Unless his growing suspicion- his wildly impossible suspicion- was actually true. 

 

“I just- uh..” He was at a loss for an answer, so went with another question. “Do you know where we are?”    
  


“Last I knew we were somewhere in Austria, not sure how long we’ve been travellin’, don’t worry about it too much. Captain America’ll be on his way. And those guys won't know what hit ‘em.” There was a light in Barnes eyes, trust and assurance that his friend was on the way. “He’ll be off that train and coming for me, us, as soon as he can.” Barnes was so sure of it.

 

Tony’s heart sank, everything he said solidified Tony’s theory further. He knew time travel was possible, he’d already done it. But this- no machine, no pym particles. It couldn’t be possible. “Sergeant, this is going to sound crazy but- what year is it?” 

 

“1945, how hard did they hit you?” Barnes frowned. It looked like he was about to ask another question but then the vehicle came to an abrupt stop. They went silent as footsteps rounded the van and the back was thrown open. 

 

He was grabbed and dragged out and for the  _ love of god _ would the pain ever stop. He wanted to scream, and scream. Cutting the thing off entirely would have to hurt less than this. Barnes seemed to be in a similar situation. A shout of pain escaped his lips and Tony winced in sympathy. 

 

They had stopped at a compound, he caught glimpses of soldiers and heard the slight intake of breath that showed Barnes had recognised something. Then he was plunged into darkness again as a bag was thrown over his head and he was dragged inside.

 

They hadn’t been walking for long, a few minutes at most, when he was thrown into a room. The bag ripped off his head. It was a cell, small and windowless. Two mats laid out on the floor, no blankets, nothing else in the room. Another thud as Barnes was thrown in after him. The cell door slammed shut and they were alone in darkness. 

 

“You okay?” Tony croaked out around the pain. He got himself propped up against the nearest wall. His eyes slowly adjusted to the lack of light so he could see the heap that had to be Barnes opposite. A sharp, humorless chuckle came from the heap.

 

“Yeah, yeah, m’good. I’d hoped my time as a prisoner of war was over, but I guess not.” Barnes tried to be lighthearted about it, but Tony could hear the fear underlying his voice. What could he tell him? That it would be okay? That Steve would come and everything would be fine? If this really was 1945, and Barnes had just fallen from the train, well Tony knew how the story went next. This would be the start of the Winter Soldier. 

 

Tony moved over to sit by Barnes. “So, tell me about yourself, Brooklyn.” He asked. Hoping to keep their minds away from the melancholy. 

 

“That obvious huh? Yeah Brooklyn born an’ raised. How ‘bout you? They found us at the same time, what were you doin’ all the way out there? And how’d you know my name?” Barnes sure was full of questions Tony didn’t have good enough answers for. His mind still reeling from the apparent unplanned time travel. 

 

“I, uh, I don’t remember. I don’t know how I got there, and I must have just recognised you. Maybe from before?” It wasn’t exactly a lie. He really didn’t know how he’d gotten there, and he did recognise Barnes. “Don’t go off topic though, I was asking about you.” Tony redirected and Barnes breathed a laugh. 

 

“Okay, what d’you wanna know? Like I said I was born in Brooklyn, I’m the oldest of four. I joined the army, 107th, then the Howling Commandos. And now I’m here.” 

 

“Oh what a detailed account of your life I feel enlightened. Thanks Brooklyn.” He rolled his eyes, not that Barnes could see. 

 

“Call me Bucky, and what should I be calling you?” Tony mouthed the name ‘Bucky’ and decided he liked it. 

 

“I’m Tony... Potts, Tony Potts. So,  _ Bucky, _ you mentioned that Captain America will be coming, how do you know our all american hero?” It hurt knowing it wasn’t true, Rogers had no idea Barnes was even alive at this point. He wouldn’t know for another seventy years. 

 

“Well,  _ Tony,  _  he wasn’t always Captain America. He was a punk kid from Brooklyn, not even a hundred pounds and taking on people twice his size. We met as kids, I saved him from getting his ass kicked by a bully and carried on doing it till the day I was shipped off.” Tony laughed at the mental image of tiny pre-serum Steve. “Course now he’s all big and muscly, but he’s still a punk. Stubborn and doesn’t know when to quit.” 

 

That sounded like the Steve Rogers Tony knew. They’d fought, near constantly in fact. Rogers always so sure he was doing the right thing, the right way. So rarely capable of seeing the bigger picture, moreso when it came to his best friend. To Bucky. But he’d found it difficult not to like the man sometimes, when he wasn’t being so boneheaded. 

 

“And what about you, Tony? What can you tell me about your life?” Bucky asked. And Tony considered what he could tell him about his long complicated life that wouldn’t send him spiralling. The biggest things were Morgan and Pepper, his beacons. His light in the dark after the snap, but now. Would he ever see them again? They were almost eighty years into the future. They thought he was dead. And, well, wasn’t he? Even if this wasn’t the afterlife, and he lived through this imprisonment, he’d die long before Morgan was ever born. He’d never see her again. Tears welled in his eyes and threatened to spill over.

 

Bucky must have sensed something was wrong because he placed his right hand on Tony’s knee comfortingly. “I’m sorry.” His voice was soft.

 

“No, no I’m okay, I was a mechanic before, that’s what I did.” Rather an understatement but still somewhat true. “I like to create things.” 

 

“Creating things, I like the sound of that. Too many people wanting to destroy lately.” Tony had to wholeheartedly agree, though he was sure they were talking about different latelys. Fucking time travel. Bucky tried to stifle a yawn under his hand.

 

“You should get some sleep while you can. We don’t know when they’re going to be back.” Tony scooted over to make room for Bucky. “I’ll stay up, keep watch. I’ll wake you up if our big bad friends return.” Bucky accepted his reassurance with a pat on his knee as thanks. He laid down, and must have been exhausted he seemed to fall asleep so quickly. Tony lent against the wall to watch Bucky sleep, keeping an ear out for any approaching noise. 

 

*

 

Time didn’t exist within the dark cell. They were in a different plane altogether, where time moved in speeds and directions it had no right to. Tony couldn’t be sure how long Bucky had been asleep for before the cell door swung open, blinding him. He shook Bucky awake carefully. 

 

He was unsure of what would happen next. He knew Bucky would lose his arm at some point, they wouldn’t even try to save it. He’d go through the programming, the cryostasis, missions. But Tony only knew what happened vaguely. He didn’t know the timeline, he didn’t know the details. Not to mention he wasn’t supposed to be here. What would they do to him? Kill him? Keep him imprisoned? Experiment on him? 

 

The soldier walked in, looked between them, then hauled up a still half asleep Bucky. The harsh movements elicited a distressed cry. Tony scrambled to his feet, telling them to  _ leave him alone-  _ they didn’t listen.

 

*

Bucky was thrown back into the cell after some of the most tense hours or days of Tony’s life. An accomplishment when the events of Tony’s life were taken into account. Tony jumped, hurried over to his side. Bucky didn’t move from where he’d been thrown on the floor. His face vacant. Tony checked him over to see what they’d done and-  _ oh _ . The arm was gone. They’d already taken it. The stump covered with tightly wrapped bandages. “ _ Shit,  _ Brooklyn, Bucky.” Tony’s hand hovered over Bucky, not sure what to do. A voice sounded from a man, behind the one blocking the door. Russian, irritated. 

 

The soldier grabbed Tony next. 

 

*

 

He was strapped to a table. Men that resembled doctors hurrying around him. For the first time he got a good look at his arm. Mangled, burnt, cracked with the power of the infinity stones that had flowed through him. He retched, closing his eyes tight against the sight. What the doctors were about to do became abundantly obvious far too quickly. Perhaps the pain, the fear, the confusion had made him slow. It was the best answer he had for why it took him so long to realise. 

 

They had cut off Bucky’s arm because it was of no use to them. Broken beyond repair, or at least their ability to repair. Or perhaps not so, but not worth the effort. Easier and more efficient to replace it with a deadlier model. Tony’s arm was much the same. There was no hope in saving it. 

 

He had one piece of hope however. Small, flickering, so dim it might not have been there at all. If they were to take his arm, then they surely wouldn’t kill him, not yet at least. 

 

There was a doctor stood at his side. A long needle poised in his hand. He spoke with a thick russian accent. “The other did not take to the anaesthetic. You should hope you do.” The needle slipped into his vein and Tony’s last fleeting thought was that Bucky had been awake- awake through it all. 

 

*

 

Tony dreamt of a ruined battlefield. Dust hung heavy in the air and clung to his throat. It churned and rose till the dust surrounded him, filled his mouth, his nose and blocked the world from his sight. It rend him apart cell by cell, slowly, agonisingly. It tore and tore, further and further. It didn’t stop till he was dust too, joining the mass. What made him Tony slipping away. 

 

*

 

A hand carded through his hair. It pulled gently through the strands, separating them and messing it up. Pepper often woke him up like this during lazy mornings on the farm. He wanted to tell her to stop, he was so tired. Sleep was calling for him, the nothingness luring him back into it’s gentle arms. He couldn’t tell her to stop though, he knew how much she enjoyed these moments. Instead he let the relaxing movement of the hand in his hair draw him back to the real world.

 

A number of things struck him as wrong. It was dark still, why would Pepper be awake that early? And the bed was so uncomfortable, like concrete. He opened his eyes and instead of Pepper's loving smile- there was Sergeant Barnes. 

 

He was still in the cell, eighty years away from Pepper and Morgan. Pain came flooding back, had it ever really been gone at all? 

 

Bucky looked sorrowful. He forced a small smile. "Mornin' Tony." Tony's eyes were drawn to the stump of Bucky's arm. He lifted his left arm, went to touch the right but there was nothing there. 

 

His breath came faster. His eyes wide as he stared at where his right arm should be. He could have  _ saved it _ . They'd taken his arm and he could have saved it. His chest constricted, it hurt so much, he couldn't breathe. His lungs were heavy and it felt like he was dying but all he could do was stare at the stump of his arm.

 

"I'm going to need you to breathe Potts, come on breathe." Barnes had sat him up, was looking him in the eyes. How could the other man be so  _ calm?  _

 

"I  _ am  _ breathing!" He tried to shout, but the words barely made it out around the panic in his throat. 

 

"Deep breath in, breathe out. You're gonna start freaking me out too and we can't do that." Tony tried to do as he said. He drew in a shuddering breath.  Another. Some of the pressure on his chest alleviated but shock still clung to him. 

 

“Barnes, Bucky they-” His breathing quickened again and Barnes shushed him.

 

“Believe me, I know, but you-" He was cut off as Tony started laughing. Quiet and painful. He looked from the stump of his own arm to Bucky's and the laughter grew.

 

"Holy fuck, this can’t be happening. _ "  _ The absurdity of the situation hit him, they didn't tell you about this in all the stories. His laughter was crazed. It spilled from his lips despite his best efforts and filled the small room. Tony covered his face, laughing into his hands till the laughter turned to sobs once again. A heavy hand landed on his shoulder, nothing was said between them, Tony wasn't sure what they could say. 

 

An indeterminate amount of time later, the hatch at the bottom of the door opened and a singular tray was pushed through, meagre rations, barely enough for one person- let alone two. Bucky picked it up, brought it over to them. His gait was off, the weight distributed incorrectly. 

 

“You take it, I’m good.” Bucky offered, despite how his eyes clearly revealed how badly he wanted the food. Tony didn’t remember the Barnes from the future being so expressive. 

 

“No way Brooklyn, we can share. None of that self sacrificing bullshit.” He’d had enough of that for a lifetime. He picked up the bread roll with the intention of halving it. Difficult with only one hand. 

 

"I've got this, thanks Tony." Bucky gestured to whatever the mush on the tray was. They ate with their hands, but it still helped to calm Tony down. They sat in a heavy silence, but not uncomfortable. Both glad to have the other there as they dealt with their own pain. 


End file.
